Kissing Chess Pieces
by Jemennuie
Summary: Narcissa, the stones of a Hogwarts hall, a conversation Avery had with his father; the time differences distinguishing these three events were starting to blur in Avery's mind.


A/N: As Avery does not have a first name in canon, I gave him the first name "Alton" for this one-shot.

**Kissing Chess Pieces**

Narcissa's lips are brushing the nape of his neck; he can feel her breath, warm and sticky like a humid summer day, against his skin, catching on the imperceptibly small hairs.

_He is fifteen again and his father's smile is glinting like a sword. "You're getting to the age where you ought to understand how the world works, son," his father wheezes, and the smell of nicotine and tar and tobacco hangs in the air. "People are weak beings. Just skin and tendons and muscles dripping off of bone." His slow drawl lifts slightly at the end of each word, such that the vibrations linger in the air, slithering around the inner crevices of his ear._

Narcissa's fingers press lightly on his robed chest, one by one, as though she is doctor performing a check-up on a child, before her hands run up to his neck again and intertwine themselves in his short hair, her fingertips too cold and her nails too long.

"_You already know that it doesn't last, none of it except the blood. Everything else melts down to sand and sludge and nothing more." His father looks rather as though he is already part way there, the fresh skin of a young face having given way long ago to worn crags, interspersed by the mutilated soft pink tissue of a battle scar dripping its way across his left cheekbone. "But you already know about blood, Alton. I won't—bore—you by repeating myself." A crackled, tearing sound erupts from his father's throat, a poor imitation of laughter. "No, I'm telling you about human nature. They don't even deserve the title of animals most of the time. Just chess pieces, that's what they are." He scatters the small pile of still burning cigar ashes by his left hand with a sweeping gesture, before lighting a fresh one and blowing a noxious ring of smoke into the air. His son gives a slight cough that goes unnoticed._

_It's unbearable._

Her lips brush his cheekbones, the tip of his nose, his eyelashes one by one, her strands of hair falling across his face, tickling his nerve cells and smelling strongly of shampoo and flowers and the perfume that comes in expensive-looking jeweled bottles in Diagon alley.

"_They don't have any will of their own. They just sit there, molecules of sand and sludge passively occupying space until they're nudged in a direction. And life's just a game, son. Every step of the way." A few feathers of red cinders fall through his father's fingers as he breathes another cloud of tobacco from between his yellowed teeth. "I know I've given you this speech before, many times before, but it's important to know."_

_And every time it's just so terribly __**boring**__._

She's kissing him again, and this time her tongue is sliding across his teeth, the papilla grating against his, her artificial-red lipstick feeling like the threads of a spider web as her lips repeatedly stick to his.

"_Son, you're getting to the age where your friendships start to matter. Start to acquaint yourself with the rich and the powerful, remembering that they're always just chess pieces, son. Easy to manipulate, to climb on their backs on your way to the top. There's the Malfoys, the Lestranges…"_

Narcissa's breathing heavily. He's not quite sure why, when they've barely moved an inch since they started standing in this secluded corner of Hogwarts.

"_The Notts, the Rosiers, the Greengrasses, the Bulstrodes…"_

_Merlin, how long has it been? It feels like the equivalent of a double period of History of Magic, but his watch is lying and tells him otherwise._

Whatever Narcissa's motive is, she has evidently decided that they are not finished yet, and slithering her fingers between his, ensnares his lips in another kiss.

"_The Macnairs, the Jugsons, the Blacks, the—say, don't they have a daughter around your age?"_

With a last kiss, Narcissa has gently leads the both of them back to the main halls of Hogwarts. Her hand is small and sweaty and he has to stoop at an awkward angle to carry out his half of the holding of hands.

"_The Blacks are quite influential. You should ask the Black girl to go with you to Hogsmeade. Narcissa—that's the name of the youngest one." He is intensely looking at a single burning cinder at the end of his cigar and only looks his son in the eyes after an unacceptably long silence follows his words. "What? You don't want to ask her? I've seen her, pretty blonde thing and you, a teenage boy, don't fancy her?"_

_No._

"_Some other girl's caught your eye?"_

_No._

_The wrinkles around his father's eyes contort into a drooping squint, as though attempting to turn Alton into a piece of glass. "Well, what is it, then?" His voice rises in volume as thought attempting to compensate for the complete silence._

_Because I don't fancy her, Father._

_Because I don't __**fancy**__._

_Because it all seems so dreadfully __**boring**__._

_Uninteresting._

_Unbearable._

But Alton's thoughts are not as transparent as his father may believe them to be and instead, with a tightening of his teeth, he asks Narcissa the next time he sees her. (And he would like to blame it on his father, but that would be ignoring the whisper of a breeze that tickles his ears, blowing promises of "Wouldn't it be nice to be normal?")

And that tantalizing promise dancing against his eardrums, a snitch that gleams in the sun which always flits just out of reach, is what keeps him in the corners of Hogwarts' stone hallways while Narcissa runs her hands along his body and meets his lips with hers.

But when Narcissa stops trying to kiss him in the hallways and no longer brushes her fingertips against the materials of his robes, he can see the end even more clearly than she can and when he sees her with her lips against Lucius Malfoy's neck he thinks that, really, it was inevitable.

With a smile and well wishes to the new couple, he silently thinks that, despite his father's advice, it is probably for the best, because he would rather not have to use chess pieces in a bid for the top.

It seems as though it would be so much more satisfying to reach the top of your own skill.

…

Disclaimer: I don't own Narcissa, Hogwarts, Avery, etc.

A/N: This was my first attempt to write an aromantic asexual character, so constructive criticism on that or any other aspect of this one-shot would be appreciated. (Avery was intended to be asexual, where an asexual is defined as someone who doesn't experience sexual attraction.) Also, this was done for daysandweeks "A Quiz and a Challenge" challenge on the HPFC, where my pairing was Narcissa/Avery.


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